Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
WVU, Pitt Women Revive Series Thursday
December 06, 2017 04:53 PM | Women's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Growing up in nearby Clarksburg, Mike Carey was aware of the Backyard Brawl but he was never really consumed by it.
He got his first real taste of it when he was hired to coach the West Virginia University women's basketball team in 2001 and he brought some recruits to the football team's season opener against Ohio University.
"The first football game I ever went to when I was hired here, after the national anthem everybody yelled 'Eat $#@! Pitt' – and we weren't even playing Pitt!" he laughed. "I had some recruits, and they kept asking me why they were saying that and I really didn't know why they were saying that."
Carey said the West Virginia-Pitt games when the two were playing in the Big East were usually pretty competitive.
He won his first one against Traci Waites at the WVU Coliseum in 2002, and he had a stretch of success against Pitt in the mid-2000s once he got his program going.
But there were losses, too, particularly in 2008 and 2009 when former coach Agnus Beranato, now coaching at Kennesaw State, was leading the Panthers.
Her 2009 Pitt team was nationally ranked and swept the Mountaineers that year by scores of 72-63 in Pittsburgh and 72-60 in Morgantown.
"When Agnus was there, they had some good teams and the games were always very competitive," Carey recalled.
But toward the end of the series, Carey's WVU teams had the upper hand. West Virginia won five out of the last six before the series ended in 2012 when Pitt left the Big East for the ACC and West Virginia moved on to the Big 12.
Four of West Virginia's five victories were by double-digit margins.
Carey said the current series will run two years, the first game tomorrow night in Morgantown and then a return trip to Pittsburgh the following year.
Nothing has been established after that.
"We've talked about playing, but it hasn't worked out," Carey said.
And while the fans, especially those 40 and older, are well-indoctrinated in the history of the Backyard Brawl, West Virginia's younger fans, the students and Carey's players have a different viewpoint of the series.
Following his team's 70-56 victory over 18th-ranked Texas A&M Sunday night in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, Carey began to talk to his team about the historical significance of the West Virginia-Pitt rivalry.
Some of them looked at him like he had three eyeballs.
"I tried to explain it to them as soon as the Texas A&M game was over, 'Now we've got to get ready for Pitt' and they just looked at me like I was crazy," he said. "They don't have any idea. I don't think I can go that route with them. It's, 'Hey, we need to win this game. They are going to come down here fired up. We're an hour apart. They will bring fans' – that type of thing."
Carey said Pitt coach Suzie McConnell-Serio is likely going through the same thing with her players.
The two schools don't really recruit against each other so there is not much familiarity among the players, and they don't have many common opponents.
As soon as Thursday night's game is over, Carey is going to immediately turn his attention to Sunday's game at the Coliseum against Coppin State.
McConnell-Serio will quickly pivot to Saturday's game against UNC Wilmington. A bus ride down Interstate 79 to Morgantown, then a bus ride back up I-79 to Pittsburgh.
The proximity of the two programs makes the game beneficial, plus, both are in major conferences.
West Virginia is one of three Power 5 non-conference opponents the Panthers are playing this year. The others are Wisconsin and Penn State.
West Virginia's Power 5 non-conference opponents are against Virginia Tech, Texas A&M and Pitt – all in a row.
"It's a Power 5 school, and it's a name school, so people know who they are," Carey said.
The players and the students?
They will learn more about each other tomorrow night.
Briefly:
* Thursday night's game will be West Virginia's 46th against Pitt with the Mountaineers holding a 26-19 advantage. Carey is 12-6 against Pitt and 5-3 against the Panthers in games played at the Coliseum.
Carey and McConnell-Serio will be meeting for the first time.
* Carey's pregame scouting report on the 5-3 Panthers, coming off a 58-55 loss at Fordham last Sunday: "They have a real athletic three (Yacine Diop) that can go inside-out. Their point guard (Jasmine Whitney) is good. Their five (Kalista Walters) is very active and they have shooters," he said. "They come off the bench with some shooters. We've got to get out on their shooters but yet stop the penetration and keep them off the boards."
* Jevon Carter of the WVU men's team has flirted a couple of times this year with a triple-double. Well, the Mountaineer women have two players capable of doing it and a third, Tynice Martin, who is still recovering from a preseason foot injury at the USA U23 Team Trials.
Forward Teana Muldrow has three double-doubles so far this season, including a 23-point, 11-rebound, five-assist game against Virginia Tech, and guard Chania Ray had a seven-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist performance against North Florida earlier this season.
Martin shows career highs of 35 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and six steals.
Guard Dionne Morris is the last WVU player to have a triple-double against St. Bonaventure on Dec. 21, 1987 (12-11-10).
* Carey said before Wednesday's practice there is nothing new to report on Martin's injury status. Six-foot-six Ohio State transfer Theresa Ekhelar will become available for West Virginia's Dec. 16 game against Radford in Charleston, however.
That will give him three reliable players he can go to off the bench now.
He said Ekhelar is capable of spelling Muldrow some at the five, which will allow her to play her more natural power forward position and give him some more flexibility with his two wing players, Naomi Davenport and Kristina King.
Carey also said freshman guard Ashley Jones continues to make strides at point guard, enabling Chania Ray to slide over to the shooting guard position to spell Katrina Pardee.
Freshman forward Destiny Harden is another option off the bench. The Chicago resident has appeared in all seven games this year, logging a season-high 18 minutes against Central Connecticut State and Sacramento State.
She has only seen seven minutes of action in West Virginia's last two wins against Virginia Tech and Texas A&M though.
* The Mountaineers returned to the Top 10 in this week's AP poll and sit at No. 11 in coaches' poll. Since Nov. 12, 2007, Carey's teams have been ranked at least once each year with the exception of 2015, 2013 and 2009, reaching a high of No. 5 on March 10, 2014.
* Thursday's game will tip at 7 p.m. and will be live streamed via WVUsports.com. The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG will have coverage (Dan Zangrilli and Ayana Dunning) locally on affiliates statewide in Morgantown, Clarksburg, Charleston, Parkersburg, Richwood, Summersville and Sutton. The broadcast can also be accessed through WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
He got his first real taste of it when he was hired to coach the West Virginia University women's basketball team in 2001 and he brought some recruits to the football team's season opener against Ohio University.
"The first football game I ever went to when I was hired here, after the national anthem everybody yelled 'Eat $#@! Pitt' – and we weren't even playing Pitt!" he laughed. "I had some recruits, and they kept asking me why they were saying that and I really didn't know why they were saying that."
Carey said the West Virginia-Pitt games when the two were playing in the Big East were usually pretty competitive.
He won his first one against Traci Waites at the WVU Coliseum in 2002, and he had a stretch of success against Pitt in the mid-2000s once he got his program going.
But there were losses, too, particularly in 2008 and 2009 when former coach Agnus Beranato, now coaching at Kennesaw State, was leading the Panthers.
Her 2009 Pitt team was nationally ranked and swept the Mountaineers that year by scores of 72-63 in Pittsburgh and 72-60 in Morgantown.
"When Agnus was there, they had some good teams and the games were always very competitive," Carey recalled.
But toward the end of the series, Carey's WVU teams had the upper hand. West Virginia won five out of the last six before the series ended in 2012 when Pitt left the Big East for the ACC and West Virginia moved on to the Big 12.
Four of West Virginia's five victories were by double-digit margins.
Carey said the current series will run two years, the first game tomorrow night in Morgantown and then a return trip to Pittsburgh the following year.
Nothing has been established after that.
"We've talked about playing, but it hasn't worked out," Carey said.
And while the fans, especially those 40 and older, are well-indoctrinated in the history of the Backyard Brawl, West Virginia's younger fans, the students and Carey's players have a different viewpoint of the series.
Following his team's 70-56 victory over 18th-ranked Texas A&M Sunday night in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, Carey began to talk to his team about the historical significance of the West Virginia-Pitt rivalry.
Some of them looked at him like he had three eyeballs.
"I tried to explain it to them as soon as the Texas A&M game was over, 'Now we've got to get ready for Pitt' and they just looked at me like I was crazy," he said. "They don't have any idea. I don't think I can go that route with them. It's, 'Hey, we need to win this game. They are going to come down here fired up. We're an hour apart. They will bring fans' – that type of thing."
Carey said Pitt coach Suzie McConnell-Serio is likely going through the same thing with her players.
The two schools don't really recruit against each other so there is not much familiarity among the players, and they don't have many common opponents.
As soon as Thursday night's game is over, Carey is going to immediately turn his attention to Sunday's game at the Coliseum against Coppin State.
McConnell-Serio will quickly pivot to Saturday's game against UNC Wilmington. A bus ride down Interstate 79 to Morgantown, then a bus ride back up I-79 to Pittsburgh.
The proximity of the two programs makes the game beneficial, plus, both are in major conferences.
West Virginia is one of three Power 5 non-conference opponents the Panthers are playing this year. The others are Wisconsin and Penn State.
West Virginia's Power 5 non-conference opponents are against Virginia Tech, Texas A&M and Pitt – all in a row.
"It's a Power 5 school, and it's a name school, so people know who they are," Carey said.
The players and the students?
They will learn more about each other tomorrow night.
Briefly:
* Thursday night's game will be West Virginia's 46th against Pitt with the Mountaineers holding a 26-19 advantage. Carey is 12-6 against Pitt and 5-3 against the Panthers in games played at the Coliseum.
Carey and McConnell-Serio will be meeting for the first time.
* Carey's pregame scouting report on the 5-3 Panthers, coming off a 58-55 loss at Fordham last Sunday: "They have a real athletic three (Yacine Diop) that can go inside-out. Their point guard (Jasmine Whitney) is good. Their five (Kalista Walters) is very active and they have shooters," he said. "They come off the bench with some shooters. We've got to get out on their shooters but yet stop the penetration and keep them off the boards."
* Jevon Carter of the WVU men's team has flirted a couple of times this year with a triple-double. Well, the Mountaineer women have two players capable of doing it and a third, Tynice Martin, who is still recovering from a preseason foot injury at the USA U23 Team Trials.
Forward Teana Muldrow has three double-doubles so far this season, including a 23-point, 11-rebound, five-assist game against Virginia Tech, and guard Chania Ray had a seven-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist performance against North Florida earlier this season.
Martin shows career highs of 35 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and six steals.
Guard Dionne Morris is the last WVU player to have a triple-double against St. Bonaventure on Dec. 21, 1987 (12-11-10).
* Carey said before Wednesday's practice there is nothing new to report on Martin's injury status. Six-foot-six Ohio State transfer Theresa Ekhelar will become available for West Virginia's Dec. 16 game against Radford in Charleston, however.
That will give him three reliable players he can go to off the bench now.
He said Ekhelar is capable of spelling Muldrow some at the five, which will allow her to play her more natural power forward position and give him some more flexibility with his two wing players, Naomi Davenport and Kristina King.
Carey also said freshman guard Ashley Jones continues to make strides at point guard, enabling Chania Ray to slide over to the shooting guard position to spell Katrina Pardee.
Freshman forward Destiny Harden is another option off the bench. The Chicago resident has appeared in all seven games this year, logging a season-high 18 minutes against Central Connecticut State and Sacramento State.
She has only seen seven minutes of action in West Virginia's last two wins against Virginia Tech and Texas A&M though.
* The Mountaineers returned to the Top 10 in this week's AP poll and sit at No. 11 in coaches' poll. Since Nov. 12, 2007, Carey's teams have been ranked at least once each year with the exception of 2015, 2013 and 2009, reaching a high of No. 5 on March 10, 2014.
* Thursday's game will tip at 7 p.m. and will be live streamed via WVUsports.com. The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG will have coverage (Dan Zangrilli and Ayana Dunning) locally on affiliates statewide in Morgantown, Clarksburg, Charleston, Parkersburg, Richwood, Summersville and Sutton. The broadcast can also be accessed through WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app TuneIn.
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